Column/Legend
1 - Prefix  - L-Life,  H-Homosexual Behavior/Perversion, R-Religion/Legal Persecution/ACLU, E-Education, M-Media Bias, O-Other
2-7 - Yr, Mo, Dy
8 - L -Letter to Editor, C-Commentary, O-Op-Ed, M-Metro

Hotlink Index of this weeks's family values related news:  [Life]   [Homosexual Behavior/Perversion]   [Religion/Religious Persecution]   [Education]   [Media]   [Other]

LIFE
L041221    Brownback, Coburn set for Judiciary Committee
L041224    Abortion fight
L041224C  From fetus to baby

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
H041220    Valid marriage licenses turned away
H041222    NEW YORK   Agency to accept towns' marriages
H041223    California judge opens hearing on same-sex suits

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R041220    Night of caroling won't be silenced
R041220E  Lesson plan for the nation
R041220L  The Establishment Clause and 'God-talk'
R041220L  Christmas tree, not 'holiday tree'
R041220M Schools alter policy on standing for Pledge
R041221    Don't abolish Christmas
R041221    Pledge protester faces recall vote
R041222    Carolers protest religious-music ban
R041222E  Offended, too
R041222E  Christianity in retreat?
R041222L  Praise for N.J. mayor
R041223E  The faith debate in America
R041224    Bush resends 20 court nominees
R041224    'Passion' inspires interfaith essay contest
R041224E  On charity and love
R041225C  The spirit

EDUCATION
E041220C  Orange alert in the classroom
E041224M Education panel proposes floating religious holidays
E041225    TEXAS   School expels senior for 'immoral behavior'

MEDIA
M041222   The Ailes interview
M041223   Americans still turn to local papers, TV first for news

OTHER
O041220    Porn foes lament Ashcroft record on prosecutions
O041220C  Back sliding at the FCC
O041222    Moral vicars
O041222C  Parents under glass
O041222L  Doubts about Hillary
O041225    Keep politics off the dinner table this Christmas
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By Ralph Z. Hallow
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Susan Rosenbluth and fellow Orthodox Jews yesterday came to Maplewood, N.J., to join a crowd of more than 100 carolers in singing Christmas and Hanukkah songs in front of Columbia High School.
    Holiday hymns were sung in response to school policies that Steve Lonegan — the Republican mayor of nearby Bogota, N.J., who organized the event — called "intolerance" toward traditional religious beliefs.
    The carolers showed up outside the school, which held its annual holiday music program last night, to protest a South Orange/Maplewood School District ban on religious songs at schools in this community across the Hudson River from New York.
    "The greatest works of art in Western civilization are inspired by religious — predominantly Christian — convictions," said Mrs. Rosenbluth, editor of Jewish Voice and Opinion, an Englewood-based monthly.
    "We are religious Jews who believe Western civilization is the heritage of all of our children in the United States," Mrs. Rosenbluth said, explaining why she and other Orthodox Jews joined the protest.
    "This started out as a small event I decided last week to do," said Mr. Lonegan, who is Catholic. "I expected a handful of people and attacks against me by newspaper editors. Instead, there's this groundswell of support and the newspapers haven't attacked me — yet."
    He, Mrs. Rosenbluth and about 200 fellow carolers, all in high spirits, sang such traditional tunes as "Silent Night," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Joy to the World" — as well as "Come Light the Menorah" and "I Have a Little Dreydl."
    Mr. Lonegan, a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, said he asked the other Republican candidates and the Democratic governor of the state to join in the protest caroling, but they hadn't responded. Maplewood Mayor Frank Profeta, a Democrat, came to the event to shake hands and greet the protesters.
    "I've been on all three network channels here and have been doing radio shows on stations all over the United States, from Kansas and Texas to Florida and Vermont," Mr. Lonegan said.
    Mr. Lonegan called the school district's prohibition of traditional Christmas music "the ultimate demonstration of intolerance by a small minority of people who appear to be offended by the very core values that the vast majority of Americas live by — Jews, Moslems, Christian, who all believe in one God."
    A recent Opinion Dynamics poll "found that more than half of American say they call the upcoming festive time the 'Christmas season,' while under a third call it the 'holiday season' and 12 percent say they use both terms," Fox News reported.
    Outcries over anti-Christmas rules have been heeded by some politicians, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Republican reversed an edict by former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis that designated an official state "holiday tree," and reverted to the familiar title of "Christmas tree" during the annual lighting ceremony in Sacramento.
    A Virginia-based group calling itself "RightMarch.com" has been airing a radio ad across the country urging people to "stand up and defend Christmas from ... blatant attacks."
    The group reports these incidents as the latest examples of such attacks:
    •Schools in Palm Beach County, Fla., warned teachers not to allow any Christmas decorations to be displayed.
    •Across the country, children in public schools have been barred from giving out Christmas cards, and some have been banned from using the greeting "Merry Christmas."
    •In a New Jersey elementary school, a class trip to see a Broadway performance of the Charles Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol" was canceled owing to the threat of a lawsuit.
    •At a Plano, Texas, school, parents were prohibited from using red and green plates and napkins — they could bring only white decorations for "winter" parties.
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R041221   Pledge protester faces recall vote
 

By Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

ESTES PARK, Colo. — Voters in this woodsy mountain village will decide soon whether to recall a member of the town's Board of Trustees who refuses to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
    David Habecker, a two-term member of the board, faces a Feb. 15 recall vote after drawing the community's ire for refusing to stand because he objects to the phrase "under God."
    He said the wording violates Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
    "This makes the Pledge a religious test for public office," said Mr. Habecker, who works as a building designer. "It's establishing a requirement for people who want to run for this office: You have to be religious. You have to believe in God."
    Trustee Lori Jeffrey-Clark said Mr. Habecker shocked many voters and other trustees with his decision. During a September meeting, Mr. Habecker announced that he would no longer take part in the Pledge until Congress or the courts removed the words "under God."
    "We were just kind of stunned. We had no idea he felt this way or that he had this sensitivity," said Mrs. Jeffrey-Clark, a retired Navy officer.
    The seven-member, nonpartisan board began reciting the Pledge at the start of meetings in May at Mrs. Jeffrey-Clark's request. For the next three months, Mr. Habecker stood and joined the other trustees.
    The recall effort followed shortly after Mrs. Jeffrey-Clark took her 10-year-old nephew and his Cub Scout troop to a September board meeting to fulfill a civics requirement.
    "I told the Scouts that Mr. Habecker has a First Amendment right to make a statement by sitting down during the Pledge," Mrs. Jeffrey-Clark said. "But I also have a right as a citizen to make a statement. So I told him that I was disappointed with his action, that it offended me and that I wanted my vote back."
    Her husband, Richard Clark, organized a group that gathered signatures from 246 registered voters. The town of 5,500 requires 218 signatures for a recall. The Feb. 15 ballot also will include names of candidates seeking to replace Mr. Habecker if the recall succeeds, although so far no one has signed up to run.
    Mr. Habecker said he initially recited the Pledge at meetings, but that "it just didn't feel right." He decided to do some research on the Constitution, and when he came across Article VI, Clause 3, "it was like a light bulb going off," he said.
    "Once you know something is wrong, you need to stop doing it," he said.
    Ideally, he said, the other trustees would respect his protest by ignoring it. But his critics argued that Mr. Habecker was the one who pushed the issue into the spotlight.
    They said that Mr. Habecker also has publicly criticized President Bush and religious conservatives. He recently took a swipe at the YMCA of the Rockies, which operates a nearby conference center and cabins, for "hiding behind the cross," Mrs. Jeffrey-Clark said.
    "He's making a personal protest while sitting as an elected official on the board," said Mr. Clark. "This is the disrespect he's showing to his constituents."
    The issue has energized the community and fueled worldwide debate on a host of conservative and atheist Web sites alike, such as FreeRepublic.com and the ChurchofCriticalThinking.com. Each side says it has received numerous phone calls and e-mails in support of its stance, and letters on the subject are running regularly in the Estes Park Trail Gazette newspaper.
    The recall is the first in the 87-year history of Estes Park, better known for its pristine forests and large, free-roaming elk population than its politics. Located about 70 miles northwest of Denver, the community sits adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park.
    The town's other claim to fame is the elegant Stanley Hotel, which inspired the 1980 Stanley Kubrick movie "The Shining," starring Jack Nicholson.
    Mr. Habecker, who has served on the council for 13 of the last 20 years, is no stranger to tight races. In one election, he and his opponent finished tied, and he won his seat on a coin toss.
    He plans to fight the recall, but his critics predicted that his electoral luck has run out.
    "We as Americans are taking a stand. Let the people's voice be heard," Mr. Clark said. "The silent majority has had it."
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L041221   Brownback, Coburn set for Judiciary Committee
 

By Charles Hurt and Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Term limits for chairmen and an influx of new members in recent years means some fresh Republican faces will have high positions on Senate committees next year.
    Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel that will fight over President Bush's judicial nominations , gained two new vocal conservatives, according to the proposed list of assignments circulated yesterday.
    Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, and Sen.-elect Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, are joining what has become the most acrimonious Senate committee. They replace Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Georgia Republican.
    Capitol Hill insiders see the changes as a signal that Republican leaders intend to take a hard line against Judiciary Committee Democrats, who have led the filibusters against some of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.
    Democrats won't fill the committee seat being vacated by outgoing Sen. John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat who is retiring after his failed vice-presidential bid, leaving Republicans with a 10-8 advantage on the committee.
    Even though they gained four seats, Republicans didn't expand committee sizes to accommodate the new members, so some senior Republicans had to give up assignments. Democrats, meanwhile, will lose a slot on each committee to reflect their diminished numbers.
    Republican Judiciary Committee assignments will be approved by the full Senate Republican Conference in January.
    One of those quickly ascending the seniority ladder is Mr. Chambliss, beginning his third year in the Senate, who will become chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.
    Four Republicans have more seniority on the committee than Mr. Chambliss, but each has a leadership position or another committee chairmanship he did not want to give up.
    Republicans limit their chairmen to six years in the post.
    Some freshman scored senior slots for next year. Sen.-elect Richard M. Burr of North Carolina will be sixth-most senior of the 12 Republicans on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and fifth of 11 senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
    Sen.-elect John Thune of South Dakota won a coveted spot on the Armed Services Committee, while Sen.-elect Mel Martinez of Florida will take an open seat on the Foreign Relations Committee.
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M041222   The Ailes interview
    Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive officer of Fox News, fired back at his critics during an interview Sunday on C-SPAN's "Q&A."
    "You know, we get attacked and we get copied, usually at the same time by the same people," Mr. Ailes told interviewer Brian Lamb. "And basically, it's fear that we're doing something they're not doing, and they try to pretend that we're doing something political which they're not doing, but that's nonsense. We've been around eight years. We're not retracting stories. We don't have a former attorney general looking into us to try to determine how we screwed it up, we're just doing the news every day. ...
    "What they're trying to do is say that Fox News is mixing opinion and fact. That's just simply not true. I mean, if you watch Shep Smith's show at 7:00, I have no idea what Shep thinks politically. I don't see any particular agenda. Bias can be a lot of different ways — story selection, story placement, story emphasis. There's a lot of ways you can create subtle bias. But the networks for years have mixed these things, and now they're claiming we mix it, when, in fact, Bill O'Reilly is a news analysis show, or Greta [Van Susteren] or somebody else, and the hard news we do is not in question."
    Mr. Ailes, responding to recent criticism from ABC News chief David Westin, said: "He's the guy who wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to be a journalist for him. He's the guy who had his head of politics during the election basically come out and say they didn't have to be fair, they should support Kerry in the debates. I find that odd. I think David's got a lot of work to do in house before he goes out taking a shot at us."
    The Fox executive also referred to CNN International as "the anti-American channel."
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041222   Moral vicars
    "Sen. Barbara Boxer, a liberal Democrat from California, finds herself on the wrong side of a group of fundamentalists," the Wall Street Journal says.
    "A modest piece of legislation that Ms. Boxer sponsored is under attack in court by plaintiffs who demand that the government enforce their moral views," the newspaper said in an editorial.
    "These are secular fundamentalists, not religious ones. At issue is the California Missions Preservation Act, which allots $10 million to restore and repair 21 historic churches in the Golden State. On December 2, two days after President Bush signed the act into law, Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit on behalf of Betty, Carol, John and Ronald Doe — not their real names — contending that such funding violates the separation of church and state.
    "A description of the four Does sounds like the beginning of a joke: A Unitarian, a Jew, a Buddhist and a 'freethinker' go before the bar. ...
    "Americans United is selective in its opposition to government funding of religious expression. The group filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the 1998 case of National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, in which it unsuccessfully urged the Supreme Court to overturn a law imposing 'decency and respect' restrictions on NEA grantees. Among the NEA-funded works that had prompted Congress to impose the regulations was Andres Serrano's notorious photograph 'Piss Christ,' which depicted a crucifix submerged in the photographer's urine.
    "The lawsuit prompted a heartening display of bipartisanship, as the California Republican Party issued a press release 'coming to the defense of Senator Boxer.' Maybe the country isn't quite as bitterly divided as it seemed on November 2."
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H041222  NEW YORK   Agency to accept towns' marriages
    NEW PALTZ — The Social Security Administration reversed course Monday and said it will accept marriage licenses issued from communities in New York and Oregon that briefly performed homosexual "marriages" earlier this year.
    Effective immediately, the agency will accept legally issued marriage documents from Multnomah County, Ore., and New Paltz, N.Y., as evidence of identification on applications for new Social Security cards or to prove marriage for benefits purposes.
    The agency had rejected all marriage certificates issued in the brief time that officials in those two communities illegally issued licenses to same-sex couples.
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R041220   Night of caroling won't be silenced
 

By Ralph Z. Hallow
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A Republican in the blue state of New Jersey is bucking what some decry as a national trend to eradicate all traces of religion in public places.
    Steve Lonegan, who is running for the Republican nomination for New Jersey governor, is defying a school-district edict that bans religious music from holiday-season celebrations this year.
    Mr. Lonegan has asked local residents of all religions to join him at 5 p.m. tomorrow "to sing and listen to" songs such as George Frederick Handel's "Messiah" and "Silent Night," which have been banned from schools, even in instrumental form, by the South Orange/Maplewood School District.
    Residents will sing and hear Christmas, Hanukkah and other music outside Columbia High School, where students and parents will assemble later that night for the school's official holiday concert.
    "The school district's decision to prohibit even instrumental versions of classic Christmas tunes shows that those who claim to speak for tolerance are, in fact, the most intolerant," Mr. Lonegan said.
    "It's time people lighten up and enjoy the Christmas and Hanukkah season, instead of denying the religious foundation of our nation and the holiday season," said Mr. Lonegan, who is mayor of Bogota, a small town across the Hudson River from New York.
    In a Dec. 6 statement, school board President Brian O'Leary said the ban is intended "to balance the important roles that religion and music can and do play in our curriculum with a desire to avoid celebrating or appearing to celebrate a religious holiday."
    He added that "religious music, like any other music, can only be used if it achieves specific goals of the music curriculum."
    Mr. Lonegan said his purpose in organizing the sing-along is "to send the South Orange/Maplewood Board of Education and others who will deny our religious heritage a message that we're not going to let them take God out of our public life."
    Tom Wilson, the New Jersey Republican Party chairman, seconds that notion, saying that "some of the greatest works of art were commissioned by religious institutions and leaders, including much of the music we come to associate with a traditional time of year."
    The planned demonstration comes at a time when the annual battles over Nativity scenes and other Christmas-season displays are including counterattacks from a religiously motivated public against those who seek to cleanse the public sphere of religious symbols.
    •Voters in Mustang, Okla., incensed over a superintendent's decision to remove a Nativity scene from an elementary-school Christmas program took out their anger at the ballot box. A bond measure worth nearly $11 million failed, getting 55 percent of the vote on Dec. 14, short of the 60 percent needed.
    •A privately funded Nativity scene in a public park in Milford, Conn., was the target of a demonstration yesterday by the group American Atheists. However, only four members of the group showed up, Fox News reported yesterday, while about 100 people carried signs and demonstrated in favor of the creche. Milford resident Robert Jones lamented to Fox News that "we can't say Christ in public; we can't say Christmas in public; we can't say God in public."
    Mr. Wilson sees what he considers an absurd disconnect between the New Jersey school board's actions and American cultural practice, affirmed by the same Fox poll that said 96 percent of Americans say they celebrate Christmas, a larger number than those who profess to be Christians.
    "Just because a song refers to a religious figure doesn't make it a religious song," says Mr. Wilson. "Nor does some 10-year-old blowing it on a flute make it a religious statement."
    According to demographic studies, the United States is not only a religious nation, but is predominantly Christian.
    A 2001 survey by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York that sampled 50,281 American adults found that 77.5 percent of Americans consider themselves to be Christians, 14 percent follow no organized religion, 1.3 percent are Jewish, 0.5 percent are Muslim, 0.5 percent are Buddhist and 0.4 percent are Hindu.
    As far back as 1892, in Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled: "We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity." In 1952, the liberal Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote: "We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."
    In a Fox News telephone poll of 900 persons, conducted Dec. 3-4 by Opinion Dynamics Corp., 87 percent said they supported Nativity scenes on public grounds, with 9 percent opposed and 4 percent not sure. The poll's margin of error is 3 percentage points.
    The ban by the South Orange/Maplewood School District prompted David Hinckley, the "critic at large" for the New York Daily News, to write that the school district "is trying to take Christ out of Christmas, or at least out of Christmas music."
    Mr. Hinckley notes that the prohibition "doesn't just mean the choir can't sing 'Adeste Fideles.' It means the band can't play an instrumental 'Silent Night,' which is apparently considered too evocative."
    Mr. Hinckley said the ban was "silly" but newsworthy only because "it's unusual, not because it's becoming a norm."
    He decried "the way some commentators are waving it around as evidence that a large crowd of secularist liberals is trying to throw all God-fearing Christians over the side of the American ship."
    But Mr. Wilson, the Republican chairman, said the school board's ban is exactly that — another example of a larger trend, citing a federal court's order, later reversed on a technicality by the Supreme Court, to take "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance.
    "What next?" he said. "Banning Halloween because it's based on All Saints Day?"
    Or will the next move, he asked rhetorically, be to stop the Supreme Court from opening its sessions with the clerk saying, as he now does, "God save the United States and this honorable court."
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O041220   Porn foes lament Ashcroft record on prosecutions
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

When Attorney General John Ashcroft was lampooned for shrouding the bare-breasted statue at the Department of Justice, many expected he would reverse the eight-year decline in obscenity prosecutions under former President Bill Clinton.
    But today, as Mr. Ashcroft prepares to vacate the highest law enforcement office in the land, anti-porn advocates are deeply disappointed with the Bush administration's record — under Mr. Ashcroft's guidance — for pursuing peddlers of smut.
    President Bush "has a worse record in his first term than Clinton had," says Patrick A. Trueman, who served as chief of the Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
    "When Ashcroft first came to office, the pro-family groups met with Ashcroft and made our case," recalls Mr. Trueman, who like many expected pornography to be a top priority for the new attorney general. "Who does he get to run CEOS? The deputy of the section under Clinton."
    Andrew Oosterbaan, who referred questions to a Justice Department spokesman, worked in the department under Attorney General Janet Reno and was made chief of the division in the Bush administration. Under his command, CEOS has won 37 convictions, according to the division's "Obscenity Prosecutions Summary Report" released last month.
    "Please don't tell me that you have that many people on staff at those kinds of rates and all you have to show for it is 37 convictions," says David Miller, vice president of Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values. "There is not one single pro-family group that thinks CEOS is serious about going after hard-core, major-league pornographers."
    Mr. Miller, along with other anti-porn advocates, says Mr. Oosterbaan should be replaced. "Drew is a failure," agrees Mr. Trueman.
    Department of Justice spokesman Mark Corallo says that the criticism of Mr. Oosterbaan is "completely unfair" and that he "has the full support of the attorney general."
    Mr. Oosterbaan inherited a division from the Clinton administration that "was a dead effort," Mr. Corallo says. "He started from scratch.
    "Everyone here knows that Drew Oosterbaan took an issue that was not just neglected, but ignored for 10 years, and he has built a section and a team that has been aggressive," he says. "They have done terrific work."
    Of the 37 convictions obtained by CEOS, critics say, some were cases initiated under Mr. Clinton. And many of them were the most extreme types of cases, such as child pornography or, as Mr. Trueman calls it, "excrement-type porn."
    "Their philosophy has been to prosecute the most obscene material," says Mr. Trueman, now a lawyer with the Family Research Council. Left untargeted, he says, is the more run-of-the-mill hard-core pornography that saturates the Internet and is easily purchased on hotel room television sets.
    "Our philosophy when I was chief was that you go after a variety of things," Mr. Trueman says. "You treat it like every other crime and do the best you can."
    His assessment of the Bush administration's efforts to curb obscenity is shared by Paul Cambria, a lawyer who is a tireless defender of pornographers.
    Mr. Cambria told Adult Video News, an online magazine that covers the pornography industry, that the Department of Justice is exaggerating its successes prosecuting obscene material by lumping it together with child pornography.
    "When you track down their convictions, most of them are pleas to child porn. Some of them have to do with extreme types of adult entertainment: bestiality, or really hard-core depictions of rape or situations like that," he says. "That is not mainstream product. I have not seen any mainstream adult products prosecuted."
    Mr. Corallo says "nothing is off the table" when it comes to prosecuting hard-core pornography.
    "Obscenity is a crime, and we're going to go after it," he says. "You have to start with the worst of the worst. That doesn't mean that we think or believe that only the most explicit pornography is obscene."
    Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, worries about the explosion of pornography in recent years. "It takes over your mind," he says. "There are a lot of people who are addicted to pornography.
    "I have seen where homes and lives have been ruined," Mr. Hatch says. "I have seen dozens of marriages — good, decent, religious people — who have gotten into pornography, and their marriages have broken up."
    After Mr. Ashcroft was first confirmed, he talked a hard line against pornography and anti-porn activists had high hopes.
    "Obscenity invades our homes persistently through the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV, and now the Internet," Mr. Ashcroft told a South Carolina gathering of prosecutors in 2002. "This multibillion-dollar industry with links to organized crime has strewn its victims from coast to coast. Never before has so much obscene material been so easily accessible to minors."
    He cited statistics about how 9 out of 10 children between the ages of 8 and 16 have been exposed to obscene material on the Internet, usually while trying to do homework.
    "Clinical and experimental evidence show a correlation between exposure to sexually violent materials and an increase in aggressive behavior directed toward women," Mr. Ashcroft told prosecutors. "Child molesters often use obscene material to seduce their prey, to lower the inhibitions of the victim, and to serve as an instruction manual.
    "Most Americans do not want their homes besieged by an avalanche of obscenity and they support overwhelmingly vigorous enforcement of federal laws against Internet obscenity."
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H041220   Valid marriage licenses turned away

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. (AP) — The Social Security Administration is rejecting marriage documents issued for all couples in communities that performed homosexual "weddings" earlier this year.
    The agency is rejecting all marriage certificates issued in New Paltz, N.Y.; Asbury Park, N.J.; Multnomah County, Ore.; and Sandoval County, N.M., during the brief periods when those localities illegally granted marriage licenses to homosexual couples.
    Susie Kilpatrick, 30, of New Paltz, said the local Social Security office told her that no marriage documents from the town could be used to establish identity if they were issued after Feb. 27, when New Paltz's mayor began "marrying" homosexual couples. About 125 male-female couples have been married since then in the town.
    Mrs. Kilpatrick said her marriage certificate was rejected when she went to get a new card earlier this month so she could take her husband's name.
    "What concerns me is that the certificate is the only way to prove that we're married," she told the New York Times for yesterday's editions. "If something happens to us, or some other couple from New Paltz, we can't prove we're married. We would not be able to draw benefits."
    The Social Security Administration did not respond to requests for comment from the New York paper. A call from the Associated Press for comment yesterday was not immediately returned.
    The agency posts rules on its Web site spelling out which documents can be used to obtain Social Security cards.
    It accepts civil-union documents from Vermont and marriage licenses for homosexual couples in Massachusetts. Marriage certificates for homosexual couples from San Francisco, which were declared illegal, are not allowed. But the city's other marriage licenses are being recognized.
    The Web site said the legality of marriage documents in the other localities is "still unresolved at the state level."
    New York state officials, including Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Gov. George E. Pataki, have ruled that same-sex ceremonies violate state law. Several lawsuits challenging the law are pending, and New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, is widely expected to make the ultimate decision on homosexual "marriage" in the state.
    Residents in New Paltz are confused why Social Security officials are refusing marriage licenses from their town.
    Dan Wilen, New Paltz's town supervisor, said the agency never contacted town officials to inform them that the certificates would not be recognized. He called the policy unfair.
    "They're delving into every aspect of our lives, including marriage," he said. "I'm appalled."
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O041222C   Parents under glass
 

By Mona Charen

When Mary Eberstadt describes a scene from a well-financed, comfortable day-care center in her neighborhood, it's hard to forget. Mrs. Eberstadt's 10-year-old daughter spent the day at the center as part of a class trip and came home dejected. The experience was not what the girl, who adores babies and toddlers, had been expecting. "There was a little boy," she explained to her mother, "who was really sick and cried the whole time. His ear was all red, and he shrieked if they even touched it. The day-care ladies were nice and everything, but he wouldn't stop. It was just so sad. All he did was keep screaming the same thing over and over: Mommy. Mommy. Mommy."
    Thus begins "Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs and Other Parent Substitutes." Mrs. Eberstadt is aware that day-care advocates will object that she is attempting to instill guilt, and she doesn't really deny it. Parents who drop babies at day-care centers for 10 or 12 hours a day should feel guilty about it. Mrs. Eberstadt's argument is not with those single or poor parents who have no choice but to work full time and place their children in stranger care.
    Her beef is with those she calls the "separationists," who believe or at least maintain that day care is affirmatively good for children. They argue that if day-care children get more ear infections than home-raised children (and it is undisputed that they do), well, that just means they get fewer infections in kindergarten and first grade. Maybe so, but Mrs. Eberstadt counters with this question: What kind of mother wants to expose her children to the "school of hard knocks" before they can walk and talk?
    This is a point well worth making because the real debate over day care does not concern poor parents and their decisions but rather middle-class and upper-class parents who usually have a choice. The separationists resent the notion that children have a call upon their mothers' time and can impede their mothers' rise up the corporate greasy pole.
    Mrs. Eberstadt argues in this book that American parents (she doesn't let dads off the hook) are neglecting their children on a widespread basis. Some of her claims are more persuasive than others. The data on teenage sexuality are familiar but no less disturbing for that. Eleven percent of 15- to 24-year-olds are infected with genital herpes, and 33 percent of females in this age group are believed to have human papillomavirus (HPV), which increases the risk for various cancers of the reproductive tract. Where are children contracting these sexually transmitted diseases? They are contracting them in empty homes between the hours of 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., when they are often left unsupervised.
    I certainly was unaware that so much of the music teen-agers consume is shot through with misery about family breakdown. A group called Blink-182 had a top-40 song in 2001 called "Stay Together for the Kids." Another group called Good Charlotte features lyrics in which a teenager reminds his absent father of his sons and little girl and asks: "How can you sleep at night?"
    But while the data on parental neglect are certainly out there, the picture is far more complicated than that. As with most historical trends, contradictory things can be going on at the same time. So while some parents are clearly failing their children in many ways, others are doing more than ever. Most parents of my generation are far more involved, for example, in our children's education than our parents were in ours. We take many more precautions with our children than previous generations — sometimes to a fault, but this is the opposite of neglect.
    Finally, Mrs. Eberstadt urges that the use of psychotropic drugs in children amounts to a quick fix by parents unprepared to invest time in their children and to do the hard work of discipline. She argues that attention deficit disorder and even autism are not real diseases but rather labels that a too busy society puts on children who simply cry out for more parenting. In this, she is simply wrong. ADD is real, as is autism.
    For years, the medical profession did a terrible injustice to women whose children were autistic by blaming them for the condition. The conventional wisdom was that "cold" and emotionally withholding mothers caused the condition in children. We now know that this is nonsense. It's a neurological problem. Mrs. Eberstadt is doing the same with ADD. Some parents are better able to handle a disabled child than others, but that does not mean the disability is invented.
    So Mrs. Eberstadt is 75 percent right in this book. Three stars out of a possible four.

    Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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O041220C   Back sliding at the FCC
 

By Tom Giovanetti

When I was growing up, when someone would get religion (it was a red state) and profess faith, but then fall away from their religious practice and slip back into their former way of life, it was called "backsliding." Even though he knew better, some temptation from his former life was so powerful he was willing to go back to his bad old ways.
    Well, we've just had some serious backsliding at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the regulatory agency for broadcast and communications technologies.
    The FCC has been one of the most rogue agencies in recent memory. Charged with writing regulations to carry out the will of Congress in the Telecom Act of 1996, the agency has been rebuked by the D.C. District Court no less then three times for writing regulations that flew directly in the face of the Act's deregulatory intentions.
    The FCC has behaved this way because regulators cannot be trusted to deregulate. They micromanage industries, they pick winners and losers, they usurp the normal function of markets by interfering with prices. But regulators do not deregulate.
    Finally this year, the commission seemed to get religion. In just the last few weeks, the commission made the correct decision on Voice over IP (VoIP), determining states could not regulate this transforming new technology. State utility commissioners, natural FCC constituents, want desperately to tax and regulate VoIP. They view it as a chance to raise revenue and to regulate. But the FCC did the right thing in the face of what must have been enormous temptation.
    And earlier this year, the FCC announced that if a company built a new broadband network, it would not be forced to lose money on the new network. In other words, broadband networks would be free of the kind of line-sharing rules that plague existing telephone networks, allowing competitors a virtual free ride while they cherry-pick the best customers.
    This was the right decision on broadband. It made economic sense and showed respect for the rights of those who create, invest, build and own. It was the principled thing to do.
    But the FCC's broadband decision was also a victory for the Bells, and thus occasion for that most powerful of all temptations for regulators:to try to please all sides. Having made a decision that favored "one side," the natural tendency for a regulator is to look for an opportunity to do something that favors the "other side" next time.
    Well, it's next time.
    On Wednesday, the FCC announced new network-sharing rules that replace the ones the court tossed out (for the third time) this past March. Until recently, the assumption was that, chastened by the courts and driven by the free-market convictions of Chairman Michael Powell, the commission would do the right thing and quickly phase-out line-sharing and unbundling regulations.
    But the FCC has backslid, striking out for the third time in its duty to carry out the intent of Congress through the Telecom Act of 1996. The commission acknowledges the damage done by unbundling regulations but can't resist leaving them in place for another year on mass market lines, and indefinitely on high-capacity lines used by businesses.
    The FCC seems to have worked from a foregone political conclusion that high-capacity business lines would remain under the unbundling regime, and then manufactured an absurd standard for impairment to justify their conclusion.
    It is unbelievable that almost a decade after the '96 Act, the FCC still has not carried it out. It is almost as if the FCC purposely tried to thwart the intent of Congress. The FCC failure will result in more lawsuits and continued regulatory uncertainty for telecom companies and investors. It is all the proof Congress should need that it's time for new telecom legislation that not only completely deregulates communications, but also reforms the FCC.

    Tom Giovanetti is president of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), a public policy research institute in Dallas.
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R041222E  Christianity in retreat?
 

By Helle Dale

Many of us long for simpler times, the days when you could wish your friends and family a "Merry Christmas" without a disclaimer of a hint of irony. Days of glowing lights, nativity scenes, full-throated caroling, collections for the poor, sermons about the infant Jesus bringing hope, joy and light to a world of darkness. Back then, actually not that long ago, Christmas seemed so uncontroversial. Fortunately, the above Christmas spirit has not disappeared entirely from view. It still exists in many communities across this nation.
    But political correctness and intolerance have done its work over the past several decades. The problem is not that other religions are claiming a growing share of the public square. In my view, if observed with respect for others, they are most welcome to share the space. But the context of Christmas today is a secular culture often hostile to the religious observance, especially of Christians. Church leaders sound positively apologetic when they defend the 2,000- year-old message that has resonated with worshipers throughout the ages and brought them comfort and peace.
    Anyone who picks up a newspaper or turns on the television will recognize the sustained assault in the United States and Europe on Christmas and Christianity. In New York, religious floats have been banned from the "holiday parade." And last week brought the news that the pope himself had been greatly startled to find the Nativity scene in an elementary school of the town of Treviso replaced by a display featuring Little Red Riding Hood.
    But this is about more than Christmas, whose real meaning can certainly get lost in the orgy of gift giving and parties. It is Judeo-Christian culture itself that is under attack as the religious foundation of the Western World, be the example du jour legal challenges to the Ten Commandments on a wall in a courtroom in Alabama, protests against the Pledge of Allegiance with its reference to "one nation under God," or the banning of religious groups meeting in public schools. The issue of gay marriage became a symbol of these trends in the November presidential election.
    In Europe, framers of the new EU constitution, after much debate, agreed to remove Christianity from the preamble. Amazingly, the Archbishop of York this month told the BBC, "I'd be a bit hard pushed to say we were a Christian country." (Opinion polls actually indicate that 60 percent of the British consider themselves Christians.) A new study, "Muslims and the Future of Europe," by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, writes that Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. "The centrality of Islam in the lives of so many European Muslims is hard for increasingly secular Scandinavians, Germans and Frenchmen to understand."
    Yet, Christianity has persisted as the world's most powerful religion for two millennia. It is often under stress that Christianity has proven its enduring value and the power of its message, which speaks directly to the heart of the individual. The Poles flocked to the Catholic Church in the 1980s, when it became a symbol of rebellion against Communist repression. And just as the first Christians persecuted by Rome persisted and grew in their faith, so Christians in China today are growing in numbers, despite brutal persecution. Christianity is growing in Africa and throughout Asia.
    In the United States, religious communities continue to flourish. Some 40 percent of Americans attend either church or synagogue at least once a week. As the pressures from secular culture become more intense, so does the determination of people for whom faith is the cornerstone of their lives.
    There is clearly a backlash building against the loosening of this country's religious and cultural moorings, which for the liberal media is hard to fathom. They were astounded by how many of those who voted for George Bush cited "moral values" as their primary concern. These moral values, however imprecisely defined, clearly have religious foundations.
    So, Merry Christmas to all readers of good will, and no apologies. In a world that respected the great powers of religion not just Christianity for good, we would all be better off.
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R041222L   Praise for N.J. mayor
    Thank God for Mayor Steve Lonegan of Bogota, N.J., ("Night of caroling won't be silenced," Page 1, Monday). We need to follow him in singing and playing our Christmas carols. After all, what is this holiday (holy day) if not Christmas? There's no denying that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child. We should all rejoice for that miracle.
    It doesn't bother me if people celebrate Hanukkah; I sometimes celebrate that miracle with friends. It's fine with me if others hold Ramadan as special. As for Kwaanza — OK, let them have it. Why then, do so many people want to steal Christmas and take away its true meaning? Are they jealous of something I hold in my heart?

    JOANNE E. DUMENE
    Alexandria
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R041221   Don't abolish Christmas
    Preach on, Diana West ("Pope defends Christmas," Op-Ed, Friday). I went to elementary and middle school in suburban New York. Most of my family was Catholic and celebrated Christmas in December, but some were Orthodox Christians who celebrated it in January. Many of our closest family friends were Jewish and celebrated Hanukkah.
    As a child, I found experiencing different religious and cultural traditions to be refreshing and fun. I enjoyed participating in my Jewish friends' celebrations and they enjoyed participating in mine. Learning about each other brought us closer together.
    To me, "diversity" has always meant embracing the fact that people are different and learning about their differences in a positive way. But to the political-correctness police, it seems to mean creating a godless, soulless society where no one's beliefs can be acceptably expressed in public. To me that is just plain wrong and divisive.
    The Washington Times has reported that some stores avoid wishing shoppers "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah." Well, I am not buying into their secular, politically correct view. Literally. If I do not see a Christmas tree and someone or something that clearly wishes me "merry" when I enter your store, dear merchant, then I will shake the proverbial dust from my sandals and leave without purchasing a single item.

    ANNE PASTORKOVICH
    Fairfax, Va.
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R041220L   The Establishment Clause and 'God-talk'
    How did the establishment clause — "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances" — evolve into the state shall not allow the practice of religion within any of its environments or by any of its employees while working ("The role of 'God-talk,' " Editorial, Friday)?
    These lawsuits would take the chaplain away from our troops, the priest away from the convict who is facing the death penalty and remove all moral foundations, including our history, irregardless of religion, away from all government entities. Our government system requires balance. Separation of church and state is a heuristic judicial interpretation, not a constitutional and agreed-upon right. The citizens must enforce their right to redress judicial interpretations through the legislative process. Just as the citizens who voted down a school bond because the school would not allow Christmas, they should demand a referendum to redress all judicial interpretations that are deemed unconstitutional. If they don't, the state will continue to eradicate First Amendment rights. We will end up with an elite group of "alpha-plus" intellectuals interpreting their relativistic immorality into momentary justice without values. The rule of law will become the rule of the exception.

    LARRY STONE
    Peyton, Colo.
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R041220L  Christmas tree, not 'holiday tree'
    House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert recently presided over the lighting of something called a "Capitol Holiday Tree" in Washington ("All lit up," Metropolitan, Dec. 10). The more I thought about it, the more Mr. Hastert's act reminded me of the Clinton impeachment.
    Life's twists and turns are what they are. Of course, Bill Clinton's view as president was a little different. He suggested things depend upon what "is" actually is. Apparently, so does Mr. Hastert.
    I always thought the lighted trees in my house and community this time of year were Christmas trees, not "holiday trees," and would have thought that after the November election there would be no doubt about it. After all, it would seem that the moral-value tent would include Christmas values, especially at this time of year. Apparently not.
    When lighting the evergreen and calling it a "holiday tree," Mr. Hastert was trying to say it belongs to us all. True enough. But isn't it really a you-know-what?

    ROBERT HARGEST
    Alexandria
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R041220M   Schools alter policy on standing for Pledge

SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. (AP) — A middle school student's objection to standing during the Pledge of Allegiance is sparking change in Spotsylvania County's schools.
    At the start of each school day, all students stand facing the flag with their right hands over their hearts during the pledge. Students can choose not to recite it if they or their parents object on religious, philosophical or other grounds, which is consistent with state law.
    But Virginia also allows students to quietly and respectfully sit at their desks while others stand and say the pledge. Spotsylvania's policy says nothing about letting students sit during the pledge.
    A seventh-grader at Ni River Middle School objected to the requirement that he stand during the pledge, contending it violated his freedom of speech, Principal Stephen Covert said.
    Mr. Covert said the student's complaint occurred several weeks ago. He said the boy has been allowed to sit during the pledge.
    The school board's attorney advised Superintendent Jerry Hill that Spotsylvania's policy violates state law because it doesn't allow students to sit through the pledge.
    At a school board meeting this month, Spotsylvania school officials recommended that the board bring its policy in line with state code by allowing students who object to sit during the pledge. The board approved the change with a 6-1 vote. The policy won't officially change until the board votes again at its Jan. 10 meeting.
    Ray Lora cast the dissenting vote and at first asked the board to table the motion. When that failed, he gave a passionate plea about the value of the pledge in an age when U.S. military troops face constant danger.
    "How can a red-blooded American not want to pledge allegiance to the flag?" Mr. Lora asked.
    Mr. Hill said the huge majority of students have no problem with standing and reciting the pledge, but he said Spotsylvania needs to comply with the state code and "protect those individuals who disagree" with being forced to stand for the pledge.
    This isn't the first time the Pledge of Allegiance has caused controversy in public schools.
    Written in 1892, the pledge initially made no reference to religion.
    But the U.S. Congress, in the midst of a Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union, added the phrase "under God" in 1954.
    In 2002, an atheist Californian sued his third-grade daughter's school district.
    The man argued that requiring the pledge violates the separation of church and state.
    A federal appeals court agreed with plaintiff Michael Newdow in June 2002.
    But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling last summer.
    In 2001, the Virginia General Assembly mandated that public school districts require the pledge daily.
    It's been policy in Spotsylvania since July 1, 2002. Before that, teachers could choose to lead the pledge.
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041225   Keep politics off the dinner table this Christmas
 

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Family members who sit down today for Christmas dinner should try to ensure things stay merry by not bringing up the Nov. 2 presidential election.
    That's the advice of some specialists in family relations, who say family conflicts can be worsened under the stress of the holiday season, particularly after an election as divisive as the one last month.
    "There are still a lot of raw nerves after the election," says University of Florida psychologist Garrett Evans.
    Karl Pillemer, a sociologist at Cornell University, agrees.
    "This election was unusually divisive, since lifestyle issues overlapped with family issues. I haven't seen issues of political morality so intense since the late 1960s," Mr. Pillemer says.
    To keep relations cordial during the holidays, Mr. Evans recommends that those tempted to crow about the victory of President Bush or bemoan the defeat of Democratic Sen. John Kerry keep their mouths shut if family members have differing political views.
    "I know families that have declared a public truce to not speak about politics," says Mr. Evans, an associate professor in the clinical and health psychology department in UF's College of Public Health and Health Professions.
    Turning off the television during the evening news also helps to keep the subject of politics from coming up, Mr. Evans says.
    For most families, "during the holidays, it's wise to establish a demilitarized zone," Mr. Pillemer says. "It's not the time to try to change your adult son's view of the recent election or a cousin's view on abortion. Instead, you might want to focus on points of similarity."
    Even without discussions about politics the holiday rituals, such as traveling, buying and wrapping gifts and decorating the house, can make family get-togethers stressful, Mr. Evans says.
    Mr. Pillemer says family stress is heightened during the holidays.
    "This may be the only time of the year that we are thrown together with our parents and siblings. It's helpful for everyone to acknowledge that being together again can re-activate family conflicts," he says. "Feelings of ambivalence are often common, as family members feel both strong feelings of attachment but also irritation as the time together continues."
    While contending that most families "should not make the holidays a time for serious emotional charges," Mr. Pillemer acknowledges families that regularly talk about politics and know each other's opinions might find a discussion of the election "relaxing" and a "way to avoid more difficult conversations."
    Kenneth R. Greenberg, a psychologist in Washington, questions the feasibility of trying to curtail some subjects of discussion at family get-togethers in this "very diverse society."
    "Should we also curtail discussion about war or violence, negative news or the commercialization of Christmas?" he asks.
    Religion also can be a sticky issue for family members during the holidays, Mr. Evans notes.
    "I encourage flexibility. You haven't been to church in three years and your mother wants you to go. Why not give it a shot? You love her, it will make her happy, the music is pretty good and it will give you the chance to break out that old turtleneck sweater Aunt Heloise gave you four years ago," he says.
    To give everyone in the family space during extended visits, Mr. Evans suggests that couples plan activities outside the house for themselves and their children.
    "Getting through family events requires a lot of flexibility and the ability to remember that, although you don't pick your family, they didn't pick you, either," he says.
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R041224   Bush resends 20 court nominees
 

By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The White House yesterday announced that President Bush will renominate 20 candidates for federal courts who were denied up-or-down votes by the Senate during the president's first term.
    The move was a direct challenge to Democrats and set the tone for what is expected to be a fierce fight over the Supreme Court, which most observers think will have several vacancies in the next four years.
    "The president nominated highly qualified individuals to the federal courts during his first term, but the Senate failed to vote on many nominations," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.
    "Unfortunately this only exacerbates the issue of judicial vacancies, compounds the backlog of cases and delays timely justice for the American people," he added. "The Senate has a constitutional obligation to vote up or down on a president's judicial nominees."
    Liberals lambasted Mr. Bush for re-nominating what they called "extremists." They viewed the move as a precursor to the Supreme Court battle in which they expect him to nominate justices who would outlaw abortion.
    "This slate of nominees signals again that the president and his team want to pack the federal courts with right-wing ideologues and roll back decades of progress in social justice," said Ralph G. Neas, president of People For the American Way.
    "This portends long, hard months of debate over the federal courts and sends a truly disturbing signal of what we can expect if and when a Supreme Court vacancy occurs," he added. "If justices like these are appointed, we can say goodbye to a woman's right to choose."
    The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) called the president's move a gift to religious conservatives who helped elect him last month.
    "It looks like Jerry Falwell got his Christmas wish list in to the president on time," said NARAL President Nancy Keenan.
    "But even if he drops these nominations down the Senate's chimney, there's nothing he can do to make them any less out of the American mainstream," she added. "Why doesn't the president understand that all anyone is asking for is judges who'll respect personal freedom and privacy?"
    Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said he was "encouraged" by the renominations.
    "The American people sent a strong message on November 2 against the obstructionist tactics that, unfortunately, we saw all too often in the past four years," said Mr. Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
    But Sen. Harry Reid, the incoming Senate minority leader, has assumed a defiant posture on the issue of judicial nominees. He has emphasized that while the Senate refused to vote on some nominees, it approved the vast majority of those who received votes.
    "During the four years that President Bush has been president, we've approved 207 federal judges and turned down 10," the Nevada Democrat told NBC this month. "The president should be happy with what he's gotten, 207-10. That's a pretty good record for him."
    The White House did not sound happy yesterday, pointing out that 16 of the 20 candidates in question were first nominated more than a year ago. Most of those would have been approved by the Senate's 51 Republican senators, but Democrats invoked filibusters that would have required 60 votes to break the logjam.
    The Senate will have 55 Republicans next year, still short of overcoming a filibuster, although some Republicans are considering a procedural solution. It would call for 51 senators to vote on a motion declaring that filibusters violate the constitutional duty of the Senate to provide advice and consent to presidents on judicial nominations.
    Such a motion could be enacted by Vice President Dick Cheney, who is also president of the Senate. That would clear the way for the 20 nominations to be confirmed, although Democrats consider such a move the "nuclear option" and likely would retaliate.
    "If they, for whatever reason, decide to do this, it's not only wrong, they will rue the day they did it, because we will do whatever we can do to strike back," Mr. Reid said this month. "I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up."
    Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said any attempt to stop Democratic filibusters "would make the Senate look like a banana republic" and "cause us to try to shut it down in every way." Specifically, he has threatened to block the president's plans to simplify the tax code and partially privatize Social Security.
    But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist last month called the use of filibusters against judicial nominees a "formula for tyranny by the minority." The Tennessee Republican added: "One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end."
    White House political strategist Karl Rove, who told The Washington Times in September that Republicans would gain up to four Senate seats, said the effect of these gains would be dramatic in overcoming Democratic recalcitrance on judicial nominees.
    "Even a gain of a couple of seats is going to work a sea change on their ability to obstruct these judges," he said.
    Republicans are confident that if Democrats continue to obstruct the president's judicial nominees, they will pay a heavy political price. Mr. Rove is convinced that judges were a potent issue for Republicans in the elections of 2002 and 2004, when voters responded enthusiastically each time Mr. Bush invoked the issue on the campaign trail.
    "If he said judges, people cheered," Mr. Rove said. "They'd know that something was fundamentally flawed with the courts, that we've got a bunch of judicial activists, that Bush could be trusted to appoint good people to the courts and there was something stinky about how all these people were being held up."
    Among those scheduled for renomination next year is William Pryor, who is serving on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. As a recess appointee who was installed on the bench while Congress was out of session, Judge Pryor would need Senate confirmation to remain on the court next year.
    Also on the list is Priscilla Owen, whom Mr. Bush nominated for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court in New Orleans.
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R041224   'Passion' inspires interfaith essay contest

ATLANTA (AP) — Shuffling between classes at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, Adam Meredith-Ployd saw an intriguing opportunity to apply what he'd learned in his studies on the history of Christians and Jews — an opportunity worth $25,000.
    An essay contest had been founded to promote understanding between the two faiths after the release of Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ," which drew criticism that it contained destructive Christian stereotypes of Jews.
    "It highlighted a conflict that can be invisible in a lot of ways," said Mr. Meredith-Ployd, a 22-year-old Christian graduate student whose essay took the top award last month. "I think what 'Passion' brought out is there's still residual issues between Christians and Jews that are 2,000 years old."
    The contest's founder, 25-year-old magazine heiress Elizabeth Goldhirsh, said she created the competition for people 16 to 22 as a way to develop interfaith unity within the younger generation.
    "Unfortunately, we've grown up with so many leaders on TV using religion for very negative purposes," said Miss Goldhirsh, who is Jewish. "When you think about other religions, you think about conflict rather than what brings everyone together."
    Miss Goldhirsh, a Harvard Divinity School graduate student and daughter of the late Inc. magazine founder Bernie Goldhirsh, said she offered a large prize package — a total of $100,000 — to attract interest in the issue.
    Her strategy worked. The 4,000 entries, however, showed a surprising lack of familiarity with building interfaith relationships in general, said the Rev. Christopher Leighton, executive director of the Baltimore-based Institute of Christian & Jewish Studies and one of the contest's judges.
    The problem, Mr. Leighton said, was that many of the entrants — particularly Christians — thought that the answer was to make the other side see the error of its ways, rather than to promote respect for differing theological points of view.
    Organizers found that many of entrants "haven't developed the ability to cross a border to comprehend the religious sensibilities of their neighbors," Mr. Leighton said. "The essay contest confirmed how much work needs to be done."
    That finding doesn't surprise Eboo Patel , founder and executive director of the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, one of the only interfaith groups in the nation focused on young people.
    "Although there's lots of good interfaith work being done in the world, very few of them involve young people," Mr. Patel said.
    He said he's been working to raise awareness of interfaith issues through high-school religious forums and national volunteer days that bring together young people of different faiths to do community-service projects.
    "It is an enormously sensitive area," said Mr. Patel, a Muslim. "People's relationships with God is the single most precious thing that they have."
    In the contest-winning essay, Mr. Meredith-Ployd found common ground in Christians' and Jews' view of time, based on the Bible's account of the seven-day creation of the world in Genesis. Both faiths, he noted, honor the seven-day cycle that culminates on the Jewish Sabbath and Christian Sunday.
    "At the heart of both these ethics is the resounding declaration that God's reality is not the world's reality," Mr. Meredith-Ployd wrote.
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L041224   Abortion fight
    "After long defining itself as an undisputed defender of abortion rights, the Democratic Party is suddenly locked in an internal struggle over whether to redefine its position to appeal to a broader array of voters," the Los Angeles Times reports.
    "The fight is a central theme of the contest to head the Democratic National Committee, particularly between two leading candidates: former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who supports abortion rights, and former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer, an abortion foe who argues that the party cannot rebound from its losses in the November election unless it shows more tolerance on one of society's most emotional conflicts," reporters Peter Wallsten and Mary Curtius said in a front-page story yesterday.
    "Roemer is running with the encouragement of the party's two highest-ranking members of Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Dean, a former presidential candidate, is popular with the party's liberal wing."
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M041223   Americans still turn to local papers, TV first for news
 

By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Americans are still loyal to familiar faces and old-fashioned neighborhood newsprint, even in a big media culture.
    As a primary source of news, we first look to local television news and local newspapers, according to a new Gallup poll, followed by cable news channels, the evening news on CBS, NBC or ABC. Morning news shows like NBC's "Today," public TV, talk radio, Internet news, National Public Radio and national newspapers like the New York Times or USA Today.
    Who's the most loyal, consistent news consumer on a daily basis? It's folks older than 65: The poll finds that 70 percent of them watch local TV news every day, 62 percent take in network news and 61 percent read the local paper.
    In comparison, less than a third of those in the 18- to 29-year-old set watch local TV news every day while a quarter heed the network news. Just 32 percent read their local paper daily.
    The Internet poses a decided contrast: 7 percent of our seniors go to the Internet for news. The figure is 21 percent among young adults.
    Such differences in tastes and behaviors causes considerable angst in an industry that must maintain ratings or readership to sell vital advertising. To get an edge on the competition, many news organizations become fixated on "branding" their image or heeding the advice of consultants who consider news a "product."
    The ultimate truth? One size no longer fits all in the news business.
    "Local, traditional media like newspapers and TV news still command a very large audience, and that's good news. But they're competing in a far more fragmented market now," said Andrew Nachison, director of the Media Center, a research group affiliated with the Virginia-based American Press Institute.
    "The bigger question is this: How will our local papers and TV stations respond to future behavioral changes in consumers who now have an ever-increasing variety of sources? " he asked.
    The evolution of these behaviors — be it mulling over headlines, faithfully tuning in a favorite anchorman or a combination of the two — are charted with care.
    The Media Center released the results of a new survey on Dec. 2, revealing the press habits of a 13,414 adults. Almost three quarters of them practice something called "media multi-tasking."
    Folks are no longer passive couch potatoes who lollygag in front of the television, apparently. According to the poll, 65 percent of us read the newspaper and 64 percent read the mail while watching TV.
    And 62 percent surf the Internet and 59 percent read a magazine while the television is blaring away in front of them.
    The Gallup poll, meanwhile, has further revelations.
    Although the poll shows that Americans still maintain loyalties to their local news providers, public interest in print and broadcast news outlets in general has declined since Gallup last took the poll in 2002.
    Public television has been hit the worst, with viewer interest down eight percentage points in the past two years. It fell by seven points among those who watched CBS, NBC and ABC, "reaching an all-time low," according to the poll.
    Viewership fell by six points for local TV viewers, also a record low.
    The poll also showed a five-point drop among National Public Radio listeners, a four-point drop among readers of the New York Times and other national papers, a three-point drop in local newspaper readers and a two-point drop among those who watch both morning news programs and cable news.
    Talk radio declined by a single percentage point.
    The only bright spot was the Internet. The numbers of those who use the Web daily or several times a week to get their news fix rose by five points in the past two years — up to 26 percent.
    "Still, it is important to note that the use of the Internet for news continues to be dwarfed by use of traditional television and print news sources," the Gallup survey notes.
 
     Contact Jennifer Harper at jharper@washingtontimes.com or 202/636-3085.
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H041223   California judge opens hearing on same-sex suits

From combined dispatches
    SAN FRANCISCO — Ten months after San Francisco's mayor defiantly granted "marriage" licenses to thousands of homosexual couples, a state judge began hearing arguments yesterday in a pair of lawsuits that seek to have California's matrimony law declared unconstitutional.
    Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer's courtroom is only the first stop in what is expected to be a yearlong odyssey that ultimately could reach the state's highest court.
    The consolidated cases were brought by the city of San Francisco and homosexual advocacy groups representing a dozen same-sex couples. Only Massachusetts allows homosexuals to "marry."
    "The assertion that marriage is inherently heterosexual can no longer be maintained, now that there are a number of jurisdictions that allow same-sex couples to marry," Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a packed courtroom.
    Representing the Alliance Defense Fund, one of two Christian legal groups that oppose homosexual "marriage," lawyer Glen Lavy argued it was in the state's interest to promote marriage as the ideal environment for raising children.
    "The state does not recognize marriage to give a welfare benefit to loving committed couples," Mr. Lavy said. "The fundamental right to marry has always been about procreation."
    In court papers, the state government had maintained that what the state already has done in advancing homosexual rights is sufficient to ward off a constitutional challenge.
    "This is not a state like other states, where rights have been denied same-sex couples," senior Assistant Attorney General Louis Mauro said. "The issue is whether it's unconstitutional to provide those rights and benefits without calling it marriage."
    The state also contends that if Californians want to redefine marriage, the way to do it is through the Legislature or a ballot proposition, not the courts.
    "If the judge decides the case for the city, it will ignite a huge movement toward a state constitutional amendment," Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Benjamin Bull said. "It's going to happen, and it will pass."
    At issue is a 1977 amendment to the California Family Code that defined marriage as "a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman."
    The homosexual groups charge that defining marriage as between a man and a woman flouted the liberal state's constitution by discriminating against residents on the basis of sexual orientation.
    The lawsuits are an outgrowth of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision last winter to openly challenge state law by granting "marriage" licenses to homosexuals, about 4,000 couples in all.
    In her arguments, Miss Minter listed Massachusetts, Canada, Belgium and South Africa as among the places where homosexuals can "marry."
    The judge said he would rule sometime after mid-January.
    In August, the California Supreme Court dealt the 4,000 "married" couples a blow when it declared their unions null and void because the city had exceeded its powers.
    "The same-sex marriages authorized by the officials are void and of no legal effect," the judges said, ruling that until the state acknowledges same-sex "marriages," no city official could sanction them.
    That left the way open for proponents of homosexual "marriage" to pursue the constitutionality of the existing laws.
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L041224  Abortion fight
    "After long defining itself as an undisputed defender of abortion rights, the Democratic Party is suddenly locked in an internal struggle over whether to redefine its position to appeal to a broader array of voters," the Los Angeles Times reports.
    "The fight is a central theme of the contest to head the Democratic National Committee, particularly between two leading candidates: former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who supports abortion rights, and former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer, an abortion foe who argues that the party cannot rebound from its losses in the November election unless it shows more tolerance on one of society's most emotional conflicts," reporters Peter Wallsten and Mary Curtius said in a front-page story yesterday.
    "Roemer is running with the encouragement of the party's two highest-ranking members of Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Dean, a former presidential candidate, is popular with the party's liberal wing."
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E041225   TEXAS   School expels senior for 'immoral behavior'
    ADDISON — A top student and varsity athlete at Trinity Christian Academy was forced out after administrators found he was running a Web site about homosexuality.
    The 18-year-old senior had attended the school since kindergarten, winning multiple service and citizenship awards and helping younger students with their Bible studies. But he was forced to leave the school months before graduation because school administrators deemed the Web site forum he designed to help teens discuss their sexuality "immoral behavior," the Dallas Morning News reported.
    "I feel completely violated. The big lesson here for me is that you can't really trust anybody. That, and I should have kept my mouth shut," said the student, who asked the newspaper not publish his name.
    He will finish his senior year at a school in Plano. The paper said he has already been accepted to a prestigious university.
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R041225C   The spirit
 

By Paul Craig Roberts

Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.
    Gift-giving is another shared custom. This tradition comes from the Wise Men or Three Kings who brought gifts to Baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than now, but even then people complained about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialism. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift-giving causes us to to take time from our harried lives and remember others.
    Christmas decorations and gifts are among our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.
    In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.
    This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching God so values the individual's soul He sent His Son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.
    Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization, people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations. The result is a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by diverse peoples who became one.
    In recent decades, we have begun losing sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by "political correctness." Prayer has been driven from schools and religious symbols from public life. Georgetown University, a Jesuit institution, is too fearful of offending diversity to display the crucifix.
    There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law — except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.
    All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we individually believe in Christ, we benefit from the moral doctrine that curbs power and protects the weak.
    Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century, the horse was ridden hard. One hundred million people were exterminated by German National Socialists and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they belonged to a race or class demonized by intellectuals and political authority.
    Secularized power cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined his dictatorship as "unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything."
    Christianity's emphasis on the individual's worth renders unthinkable such power as Lenin claimed. Whether or not we are religious, our celebration of Christ's birth honors a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a faith is worth holding on to even for atheists.
 
    Paul Craig Roberts is a columnist for The Washington Times and is nationally syndicated.
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L041224C   From fetus to baby
 

By Rich Lowry

In a spectacular murder case in Missouri, Lisa Montgomery strangled to death Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. Ms. Montgomery cut open Mrs. Stinnett's womb and kidnapped her child. This is a horrific crime that, like the Scott Peterson case, opens an uncomfortable window into our culture's tortured reasoning on anything related to unborn life.
    During the coverage of the crime, the status of the Bobbie Jo Stinnett's unborn girl steadily changed. All at once on AOL News during the weekend, there were headlines tracking events in the case: "Woman Slain, Fetus Stolen"; "Woman Arrested, Baby Returned in Bizarre Murder"; "Infant in Good Health."
    Note how a "fetus" — something for which American law and culture has very little respect — was somehow instantly transformed into a "baby" and "infant" — for which we have the highest respect. By what strange alchemy does that happen?
    An AP story effected this magic transition all in one sentence: "Authorities said Montgomery, 36, confessed to strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett of Skidmore, Mo., on Thursday, cutting out the fetus and taking the baby back to Kansas." At one point, when Ms. Montgomery was still at large, an Amber Alert went out about the Stinnett girl, putting news organizations in the strange position of reporting such an alert for what many of them were still calling a fetus.
    Given that fetuses are routinely destroyed in the United States (and legally can be destroyed up to the point of delivery), it was odd to see such an uproar about the welfare of one. Indeed, it is tempting to say that from a pure legal point of view, Lisa Montgomery simply killed the wrong victim, taking the life of the mom instead of the fetus.
    But that's not entirely true. Earlier this year, Congress passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act partly in reaction to the Peterson case, making it a crime to harm an unborn baby while assaulting the mother. Kate Michelman, president of NARAL, complained that President Bush is doing "everything in his power to restrict a woman's right to choose." Right to choose what? To have her baby harmed by an assailant?
    Pro-choicers realize that recognizing the legal status of a fetus in any way undermines a crucial philosophical support of the pro-choice position — that a baby in the womb has no rights that we are bound to respect. The Missouri "Unborn Child" law, which is in play in the Stinnett case, says "unborn children have protectable interests in life, health and well-being." The attitude behind that law is impossible to square with the animating principle of Roe vs. Wade, which protects any abortion, any time.
    The Stinnett case is unusual, but violence against pregnant women — usually committed by the biological fathers — is not. According to The Washington Post, homicide is the leading cause of death in pregnant women. It is partly because the boyfriends or lovers decide they don't want the fetus. As The Post put it in explaining one typical murder, the father "at first denied it was his child, then pressed for an abortion, then plotted murder."
    "It seems to me that these guys hope against hope for a miscarriage or an abortion, but when everything else fails, they take the life of the woman to avoid having the baby," Jack Levin of Northeastern University told The Post.
    When we mourn not just for the women, but for the babies destroyed in such terrible acts, we commit a kind of transgression against the strictest pro-choice orthodoxy. Pro-choicers have a hard time explaining why, if Bill Clinton was right that abortion should be "legal, safe and rare," the practice should be rare. One reason is that there is a continuity between the "fetus" and "baby."
    Otherwise, why do we rejoice over ultrasound images of the unborn? Why do we give them names? Why do we pray for their health and happiness? Why are we so quick to go from calling them fetuses to babies?
 
    Rich Lowry is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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E041220C   Orange alert in the classroom
 

By Suzanne Fields
 

 
    The first daughter rides to the rescue of fourth graders. That's good news because they need all the help they can get. JennaBushcan dress Texas-style in cowboy boots, belts and buckles, but it's what's under her Stetson that will make the difference.
    Jenna wants to teach at a school in the nation's capital. He's pleased that she wantstobea teacher, the president told me the othernightata Christmas reception at the White House, but if he knows which school Jenna has chosen he isn't letting on. Among her available choices is a charter school where 90 percent of the children are from low-income families.
    Coinciding with news of Jenna's career ambitions, which like everything else about a first family is big news in Washington, is a new study that shows how American fourth- and eighth-graders lag far behind their peers in other countries. This suggests that we're not preparing the next generation to compete in fields where major technological advances are made. Neither the president nor anyone else is pleased about that.
     The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, undertaken every four years, found that fourth- and eighth-grade students in Singapore scored highest in math and science. When compared with their grade peers in 45 countries, American eighth graders stand fifteenth in math and ninth in science; in another survey of 25 nations, our fourth graders stand twelfth in math and sixth in science. It's nothing short of disgrace.
     Despite all the talk about education and the importance of leaving no child behind, lots of kids are left behind. Even more troubling, another study evaluating how American students apply what they know shows our 15-year-olds lagging behind counterparts in other industrialized countries. This measurement of problem-solving ability is independent of math and science proficiency, but is obviously affected by those disciplines.
     The Program for International Student Assessment found that American 15-year-olds have trouble working out complex problems requiring creativity, competency and understanding, an ability to analyze and troubleshoot. We take pride in our excellent graduate schools and advanced technology, but we're not educating our children in the subjects that will get them to those graduate schools. Many of the highest scorers will do challenging work, but great numbers at the bottom won't. Blacks and Hispanics do not do as well in math, science and reading as children in other racial and ethnic groups.
     "U.S. dominance in technology, science and business has largely been carried out on the shoulders of the generation of workers who went to high school when the Beatles were still together," observes the Wall Street Journal. "With an ever high percentage of the work force expected to be employed in knowledge?based industries, school reform is a question of economic survival." The Beatles generation understood harmonies and subtleties in music but kids raised on the bang-bang of heavy metal and the jive rhythms of rap often don't. The boomers rebelled against authority while co-opting the values they fought against. They grew up after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, setting off a national hysteria that goaded them into an appreciation of math and science. When they grew up they wanted to succeed in business, understanding that living well really is the best revenge. They rejected the morality of their parents but were eager to enjoy the material fruits of what used to be called the prevailing Protestant ethic. That required discipline in a culture increasingly dependent on information and innovation in communications.
    What's terrifying in these new educational studies is the way that "we, the people" are cheating the generations following us, not giving them the skills to succeed. American universities bring in bright graduate students in math and science from other countries, even though many of them often can't speak much English.
    "Many of our high schools are already world class, however, too many graduate students are ill-prepared to succeed in higher education or the workforce," says Rod Paige, outgoing secretary of education. "The [results of the studies] are a blinking warning light." If education were located in the Department of Homeland Security, that blinking light would be orange.
    We need better teachers, better schools and the discipline that breeds motivation. If Jenna Bush reflects the ambition of her generation, leading more of our best and brightest into teaching, that will be all to the good for our fourth and eighth graders — and for the rest of us. Let's hope.
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R041220E   Lesson plan for the nation
 

By Nat Hentoff
 

 
    At the Stevens Creek public school in Cupertino, California, fifth-grade teacher Steve Williams, an evangelical Christian, has had his American history lesson plans — and supplementary original documents that led to the forming of the Constitution — rejected by the principal, lest he "proselytize" his students to become Christians. The documents mention God.
    As a history teacher, Mr. Williams — like other teachers in the school district — gives his students curriculum-related handouts to supplement the district's fifth-grade history textbook, "A New Nation: Adventures in Time and Place." Among the handouts are excerpts of original documents from the years during which our Constitution was being formed, as we became a free, independent nation.
    Among those documents are: Samuel Adams' "The Rights of the Colonists"; excerpts from George Washington's prayer journal and John Adams' diary; as well as excerpts from the Declaration of Independence — all documents that mention God. At a time when the fundamental principles of our history are taught superficially in our schools, Mr. Williams should be commended.
    In having his students examine these documents, Mr. Williams explains the historical role of religion in our nation's founding and the reason for the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. That provision forbids the government from preferring one religion over any other, thereby preventing the state from interfering with the practice of religion or adherence to no religion at all.
    However, at the Stevens Creek Elementary School, Mr. Williams is the only teacher required by the principal, Patricia Vidmar, to submit, in advance, all his lesson plans and supplemental handouts for review so the principal can see if they contain any religious content. (AccordingtoMr. Williams, only about 5 percent of his handouts have references to God or toChristianity.) Since May 19, 2004, Ms. Vidmar has rejected all of Mr. Williams' proposed lesson plans and original founding documents where God or Christianity are mentioned in them.
    Before this edict from the principal, Mr. Williams taught his students lessons in the origins of such religious holidays in America as Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan and the Chinese New Year. But in April, the principal ordered him not to teach a lesson about the origins of Easter because it is a Christian holiday.
    Mr. Williams has made it clear to the principal that he understands, and agrees, that he must not try to convert his students to Christian belief in the classroom. And, in the lawsuit that the AllianceDefense Fund,aChristian legal organization, has filed on his behalf in the federal court in San Jose, his attorneys emphasize that the California Education Code 51511 clearly states: "Nothing in this code shall be construed to prevent, or exclude from the public schools, references to religion or references to the use of religious literature, dance, music, theatre and visual arts or other things having a religious significance when such references or uses do not constitute instruction in religious principles or aid to any religious sect, church, creed, or sectarian purpose and when such references or uses are incidental to or illustrative of matters properly included in the course of study."
    According to the lawsuit, Ms. Vidmar has said that she's worried that Mr. Williams "would try to proselytize his Christian faith to the students in his classroom." But she has offered no evidence that he has done that. And, apparently, only one parent has complained that he is proselytizing. It's bad enough that too many students across the country are deprived of solid, enduring lessons on why they are Americans. But when this principal and the Cupertino School District defendants in the lawsuit violate Mr. Williams' and his students' constitutional rights, they are engaging in educational malpractice.
    Where is the California Department of Education, whose standards for fifth-grade education are being conscientiously followed by Mr. Williams? At the very least, that state's education department should set up a remedial course in the Constitution for Vidmar and Cupertino school district officials.
    And where is the American Civil Liberties Union? Mr. Williams' constitutional rights to equal protection of the laws and freedom of speech are being violated. Moreover, as for his students' rights, a school district official says "no teacher has been stopped from passing out the Declaration of Independence." Well, no teacher except for Stephen Williams.
    So, his students have been specifically deprived of their First Amendment right to receive information central to their education as Americans. I am a sometime teacher, and my only religion is the Constitution of the United States. I congratulate Mr. Williams and the Alliance Defense Fund for their lesson plan — not only for this school and its students, but for all schools in this nation.
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R041223E   The faith debate in America
 

By David Cowan

The debate about faith in America today represents a critical juncture in the nation's story. The outcome may determine whether America will go down the route of secular humanism that Europe has long since tread, or keep religion a vibrant element in the public square and in the life of citizens.
    There are a range of faith issues alive in America today: the role of Christian values in the presidential election, President Bush's important faith-based initiative, public use of religious symbols, the identity of the Christmas season, the role of the Ten Commandments in our understanding of justice, and our response to the rise of popular Islam. These are a few of the faith issues that the Europeans just don't get.
    In Europe, professing faith in public seems to cause an embarrassing shuffling of feet or a sneering response that we have moved beyond doctrinal matters, in the same way that adults do not believe in Santa Claus.
    In this spirit, Europe has ensured God is left out of the new constitution, only churches that preach a social gospel are listened to, scandals in the church are the only high-profile stories, and minority religious groups are either listened to out of fear or met with complete incomprehension.
    In Britain this contrast is made clear by attempts being made to pass a law banning incitement to religious hatred, which has caused English comedian Rowan Atkinson, aka Mr. Bean, to lead the defense of the right to freedom of speech, which includes the right to insult religion. The new laws would pave the way to repealing the law of blasphemy, so you can be as insulting as you like about Jesus, and introduce a law defending religious groups against attacks on them, as long as it's not Christian, presumably.
    The philosophical basis to this European rejection of faith is the resounding confidence in the faith of secular humanism, which seeks to keep religion in its place as a sociological phenomenon. The beliefs of religious groups are seen as essentially marked by the same cultural blight, and can be treated as boiling down to the same ethical injunctions to be nice people. Religion is perceived at best as a means by which all roads lead to the same God, or at worse is a delusion and a denial of humanity.
    Let us test this by looking at Jesus, the birth of whom many of us are preparing to celebrate. To secular humanism he was the Gandhi of his day. To Judaism he was a heretic. To Muslims he was a prophet in the line of prophets leading to the seal of the prophet Mohammed. To Christians he is the revealed Son of God. These are mutually different ways of understanding Jesus, and ultimately they cannot be reconciled.
    The importance in faith matters is not to try and gloss over these differences, but to recognize that the way in which believers understand the world through the prism of their faith is very much at odds with other faiths, including the faith of secular humanism. The art is not to deny the differences, or culturally seek to sanitize them, but to strive to live with our differences.
    Religious difference has a long and bloody history, which is an indictment on humanity's grasp of God rather than a reason to reject God. We need to recognize that it is our weakness that leads us to condemn the beliefs of others. One nation under God is a way to keep both God and differences as part of a tolerant America, and leave God to do the condemning.
    The Reformer Martin Luther loved to tell the fable of the dog running along a stream with a bone in its mouth. Caught by the surprise of seeing its own reflection in the water, the dog dropped the bone into the water, thus losing both the bone and the reflection. This is a fable that resonates with the current debate in America, and we ought not to lose the reflection of faith in our society.
    What the faith debate in America should determine is whether the nation will c